WA police critical of Gibson's lawyers

WA Police boss Karl O'Callaghan has criticised the Aboriginal Legal Service, saying it gave bad advice to illiterate man Gene Gibson who served nearly five years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

Mr Gibson walked free from jail on Wednesday after his manslaughter conviction was overturned.

WA's Court of Appeal unanimously acquitted Mr Gibson, 25, who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to manslaughter for bashing 21-year-old Josh Warneke as he walked home from a night out in Broome in 2010.

WA police has been heavily criticised for their handling of the case, including the fact Mr Gibson has since been found to have not properly understood what was happening during the legal process because of an intellectual impairment and a poor grasp of English.

Mr O'Callaghan said while the officers involved could have done a better job, he rejected criticism by ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington that the police were solely at fault.

He pointed to the fact that Supreme Court Justice Steven Hall threw out the police interviews because an interpreter was not present.

"I was surprised retrospectively ... that the ALS allowed Gene Gibson to plead guilty, given the primary evidence against him was thrown out," he told 6PR radio.

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"The Aboriginal Legal Service should have provided better advice to Gene Gibson, there's no doubt about that.

"I am happy to accept blame for the things that we did wrong but we will never fix the justice system if everyone points to one part of it and says your people did wrong, you are 100 per cent cent at fault, and that's got to improve."

He said it was a systemic failure by the justice system in dealing with Aboriginal people and vulnerable people that was supposed to have "fail safe" points, including legal services, lawyers and hearing processes.

Even Justice Hall had acknowledged Mr Gibson could not understand him when he was being sentenced without an interpreter present.

Mr Warneke's mother Ingrid Bishop said the ALS were incompetent and Mr Gibson was "failed dismally" by it.

Mr Eggington said the ALS stood by its former lawyer Dominic Brunello, who represented Mr Gibson, and defended its role, saying it had helped get Mr Gibson's false confession thrown out.

Mr Gibson, however, had said Mr Brunello advised him to plead guilty.

Mr Eggington also said the Gibson case followed a long line of WA police wrongfully convicting people of killing who were later freed, citing the names "Button, Mallard, Beamish - to name just a few".

"A subsequent Crime and Corruption Commission report confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that police must take sole responsibility for Mr Gibson's conviction and imprisonment," Mr Eggington said.